Red vs Blue: Healthy Relationships
by Brovenger
Summary: "They say the bonds of men in battle are like that of brotherhood!" and sometimes a good night of drinking and puking only serves to strengthen those bonds.


**A/N: What is with me and writing about drunk Freelancers? SERIOUSLY. Ah well. Lulz ensues.

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Project FREELANCER was run by a bunch of stuck-up cockbites. They took the 'military mindset' and multiplied it by a hundred. You **had** to be the perfect soldier, the perfect comrade, the perfect leader. In theory, that wasn't actually all that hard to achieve on a normal basis, but it was pretty apparent that the main squad in the project weren't exactly…normal. The strict regulations and rules at FREELANCER HQ always wound everyone up too tight. It was a bad setting, the kind that made everyone competitive and turned friends against friends. Not all of the Freelancer's agreed with this, and they weren't the type to just sit down and take it. To combat the same routines of madness, they'd arranged a monthly meet at a bar on base. The second Friday of every month, from five in the evening until five that morning; or until they all passed out, whichever came first, was their time to kick back and relax, and hopefully forget about FREELANCER for a while.

It was on one such of these nights that they were having a particularly good time. Per usual, Maine and Washington were stealing the entire show by just being rowdy and loud. The two had multiple contests between them going on- who could do the most shots, who could get the most phone numbers, who got the most blow jobs in the bathroom- and they usually came out tied in all of them. Also per usual, Maine was cheating. He always seemed to get to all of the women first, which left slim pickings for Wash later on.

"It's like I always say," Maine tried to explain, while sitting on top of the bar with his white t-shirt wrapped around his head, "once you get a taste of Maine-"

"If you finish that sentence, I'm gonna give you a taste of Texas," Tex interrupted, glaring at him from her perch on a stool.

"Ah, yer just jealous you can't handle me," Maine sassed, waving his hand at her in a dismissing motion.

"Excuse me? I thought it was the other way around," Tex snapped back, putting a hand on her hip. "From what I heard, Maine couldn't handle the Texas _heat_."

"Bitch, please," the male said, leaning forward. "Why don't we put that to a real test?"

"I think I'm gonna throw up," York mumbled, taking another sip of his beer.

Tex just rolled her eyes and chugged down the rest of her drink. She slammed the glass down on the bar and licked her lips, smirking at Maine. "You wanna put your money where your mouth is?"

Maine grinned at her, hopping off the bar and setting his own glass down. "Oh, I'll tell you where I'd like to put my mouth-"

"Bartender!" Tex snapped. "Refills, if you please."

The bartender walked down to where they were standing and poured them each a full glass. He hadn't even taken the bottle back yet before they'd downed them and asked for more refills. Tex and Maine repeated this action multiple times while their friends crowded around them, cheering them on.

A green glow appeared next to York. "_I do not predict this ending well…_" Delta said, watching as the stubborn duo continued to knock back drinks. York sighed, setting his beer down and sliding of his stool.

"You're right…I'll go get the puke buckets," he said, walking off to the bathrooms.

Maine set his glass down again, swallowing the last mouthful of liquor that'd been in it. He looked over at Tex with half-lidded eyes, leaning heavily on the bar. She just smirked at him, standing as tall and straight as ever. He wasn't even sure if she _could_ get drunk, and now that he thought about it, he sure as hell had never seen her in such a state.

"Tex, baby, you feel like throwin' in the towel yet?" he asked as the server poured him another drink.

"Actually I was thinking about raising the stakes, Maine," she responded.

"Oohh?"

"Loser has to wear pink armor until the next meet."

Maine stared at her, squinting.

"That's a month," she added.

"I know how long it is!" he snapped, crossing his arms. "Fine! I think pink would be a good color for you anyway."

"Aw, I was just thinking it'd really go with your eyes."

Washington showed up just as they were going another round. He plopped down in the seat York had vacated, picked up the abandoned beer, gave it a sniff, and then decided to finish it. For some reason, the guy was all smiles, which actually wasn't unusual for Wash when he was drunk, but he seemed more cheery than usual. Maine picked up on this and turned his attention from his contest.

"Watchu grinnin' about?" he asked.

Wash held up a piece of paper with a phone number on it. "How many are **you** at tonight?"

Maine gaped and shoved his hand in his pants pocket, pulling out his own slip of paper. He kept a tally of all his phone number collects of the night on one spot. Never kept the numbers, though, just tossed those in the nearest waste bin.

"12," he read, holding the paper close to his face to make out his scratchy handwriting.

"13!" Wash exclaimed, tossing the paper at him and holding his hands above his head. Finally! He won!

"Bullshit!" Maine snapped, now completely disregarding Tex, who was also celebrating her victory over Maine. (Which was also 13-12.) Wash pulled the other phone numbers out his pockets as proof, smirking as Maine counted and re-counted each one.

Maine's disgruntled frown slowly morphed into a pleased grin as he grabbed Wash in a headlock. "Well, looks like our little boy finally grew up!" he shouted and ordered another drink for the man.

"It's about time, that's for sure," South mumbled.

York suddenly reappeared as Maine was forcing Vodka down Wash's throat. He frowned, noticing the other Freelancer had taken his seat **and** beer. He held a few buckets stacked inside each other in his hand and stood next to the possibly-comatose North.

"Did I miss anything important?" he asked.

"_I think Agent Washington helped himself to your beer,"_ Delta announced, glowing into life next to him.

"Yeah I already noticed that, D," he grumbled.

"Not much really; Wash's balls dropped and Maine's wearing pink armor for the next month," Tex said, grinning as she pictured the latter in flaming pink.

North suddenly woke up with a start. He looked around for a moment, blinking in the neon lights from the signs behind the bar before bending over and throwing up the contents of his last meal. South yelped and jumped backwards to avoid the stream of chunky bile, but York was caught in the mess at point-blank range. He frowned, his right eyebrow twitching slightly.

"You knew, didn't you?" he growled.

The projection of Delta turned and looked up at him, _"Define _knew_."_

The rest of the group broke out into laughter, save for North who promptly took comfort on York's shoulder and passed out again, which only added to the hilarity of the situation. York pushed the kid off his shoulder and stomped off back to the bathrooms yet again, this time to try and salvage his shirt from the sticky mess that was solidifying on his chest. Their amusement was cut short by club security walking over and informing them that last call had passed an hour ago, and that they needed to leave. They were given the option of stumbling out of the club, or being carted off by a gang of Military Police. They chose the stumbling selection.

South huffed as she struggled with moving her brother off of his stool. York returned again, wiping at his shirt with some toilet paper. He tossed the useless wad of tissue onto the bar and helped her cart North across the bar to the door.

Maine and Wash waltzed out arm-in-arm, singing a Lady Gaga song horribly off-key while their resident AI's took bets with one another on which one of them would actually make it back to their bed and which one would end up crashed in a back alley or garbage can. Apparently, Epsilon didn't have that much hope in his partner. Tex and York took to arguing over who was going to play "parent" and see everyone home. Omega tried to get in on the fight, not being one to turn away from conflict of any kind, but was quickly verbally bitch-slapped into submission with a quick quip from Delta, which caused their human counterparts to cease their griping momentarily to give the AI a wary look.

"Hey, hey!" Maine called out from a few feet away, still hanging onto Washington. "This was fuckin' fun; same time next month right?"

"You act like we're not gonna see each other until then or something," South said.

"Well, we will, but you know how that goes," he said as Wash nodded his head in agreement. "You turn into an evil bitch, Tex gets mean, Wash goes crazy; it's not the same. That's why I feel reminders are in order!"

"So you're saying we're only friends when we're drunk?" Tex inquired, crossing her arms.

"_Now now, let's not go around throwing out the word 'friend' like it means anything!"_ Omega chirped, followed by one of his fits of horribly over-done laughter.

"Will you shut up?" Tex snapped.

"_I believe that Omega is only saying that because he does not understand the meaning of the word 'friend'. Which is hardly surprising, if I may add,"_ Delta said, causing York to flinch and cover his mouth to hide his laughter.

"_You there, do you want to lose your __**other**__ eye?"_ Omega barked, seemingly glaring at York.

"I think my point's been made," Maine mumbled, scratching his head and letting go of Wash, who wasn't prepared for the sudden loss of support and tumbled sideways, right into the side of a metal dumpster.

"Fuck it, I'm gonna go t' sleep," he mumbled, curling up.

"_Told you." _Epsilon mumbled.

"All right you guys, can we stop dicking around and get back to HQ?" South snapped, once again adjusting North on her back. "It's getting late and cold."

"Good idea," York said, walking over and helping her with him. Tex and Maine hefted Washington up from the curb and saddled him between them.

"Well, this was interesting," Tex said as the six of them walked down the darkened street back towards the big looming building in the distance. It was earlier than their normal time of the morning when they typically returned, but they'd made as many memories as they always did, so it wasn't that bad a trade. Tomorrow they'd all wake up with banging heads and sick stomachs, but at least when they'd meet in the chow hall, it'd be a pleasant meeting…at least until Monday, anyway, when work resumed.


End file.
